Sign Posting

In the 0=0 ritual you are give several signs which on the face of it look pretty damn silly and do little for any plans you might have for magical domination of the known universe.

Firstly there is the sign of the enterer which you are instructed represents you stumbling in darkness groping for the light. The second is the sign of silence which is placing the finger on the lips and stamping the foot. However you are given some instructions that gives you some clues that this is not all it seems. You are told that the first sign always follows the second. This should ring some alarm bells and beg the question, why should a statement of silence always follow a bit of darkness groping?

Firstly let us look at the idea of groping in darkness. A person doing so is attempting to move themselves forward. They are making an effort in this case to find the light. In the 0=0 this projecting sends out a ray of energy to the person’s higher self. Based on this effort the higher self says ‘hurrah he’s paying attention” and comes barrelling down the middle pillar to meet half way (This is part of the symbolism of the hexagram). When the Higher Self and the Lower Self meet a new being is created. This is represented in Egyptian symbolism as the Divine Child, Harpocrates or Horus, emerging from the Lotus. The Greeks confused Harpocrates with their god of silence. Since the GD came about before this mistake was corrected we are stuck with it. However it does not really matter in the scheme of things.

Thus these two symbols mean I stretch toward the light and become the divine child. This also explains the fact that you are told that whenever you see the banner of the East, you are supposed to do the sign of the enterer and the sign of silence. You are mimicking the 0=0 initiation rite. It also explains a bit of what happens in the communion where you project towards the god form of Osiris as a symbol of your higher self and see the representation of Harpocrates standing in the same position he does in the 0=0 initiation by having the person stand in the sign of silence.

But again there are some other instructions where this formula does not quite work. Why in the opening does the Hierophant perform the sign of the enterer but seems to delay a bit before performing the sign of silence? Why do you do them before the pentagrams when you perform the lesser banishing ritual? Why is it called projection when it is more of a grope?

To explain this, we have to look at what the sign is also doing. This is not incompatible with the earlier explanation but is the key to using the sign in practical magic.

Firstly ritual act of the sign of the enterer takes place within the aura of the candidate. When it is done properly a line of light comes from the candidate’s heart centre to the crown, it drops down to the brow where it is focused by the eyes, it then drops down to the heart centre where it is projected out in the direction of the hands. This is done in the instant of a breath. You breath in, the light goes up, focused, down, breathe out and project as you do so.

If you were vibrating a divine name, like in the pentagram ritual, you would see the divine name in Hebrew in the heart centre, empower the name as the light comes down, and vibrate it as you project outwards. If you do this properly you will be send a current of personal and divine energy outwards.

This will continue long after you have stopped vibrating and will take most of the juice out of your system if you do not cut it off. This is why you perform the sign of silence afterwards.

The sign of silence is actually a basic god form working. You are standing in the position of the god form of Harpocrates and are taking on some of his nature. To do this properly you should visualise yourself in the form of a young Egyptian human god, with a pigtail on the side of your head. You should see yourself standing in the centre of a lotus flower, with your entire aura in an impenetrable blue sphere. The effect of doing this is to cut off any energy outpouring from you and to prevent any rebounding energy returning if something goes wrong with your projection.

It is a very good system of defence if you feel that you are being drained by someone or even a bit attacked. Empowered by the god-form, the sign of silence will build a powerful shield between you and the outside world. It will give you a feeling of calm and allow your energy to be restored.

There is a bit of a knack to all of this and it requires practice. You need to feel energy moving through you as you do these things. On the Enterer projection you need to feel the energy move up, down and out. One way of doing this is to put a candle at one end of the room and practice projecting over and over. The idea is that you want to get the flame to move by blasting it with enough energy. It is difficult to do, but not impossible. However you should not worry if you cannot. The goal is to get the *feeling* that the energy is leaving your body. You should also follow up with the sign of silence so that the practice of the god form becomes second nature.

You will find that the sign of the enterer is used in the GD whenever we are empowering anything ranging from talismans, to people. The reason that the Hierophant does the sign of the enterer is that he is empowering the god forms of all the officers and the ‘invisible stations’. When enough energy has entered them, he performs the sign of silence.

2 thoughts on “Sign Posting”

Some good insights into the 2 Neophyte Signs. And thanks for drawing our attention to the Harpocartes being a mistaken interpretation of the Child Horus. At first I thought you were mistaken here, but I looked into and you are right. I remember Chic Cicero saying at a GD seminar in London (before I was even in the GD) how the Sign of Silence was not like a “shush” gesture with the finger vertical, but rather wit the finger horizontal pointing inwards to the mouth. At the time, I didn’t understand why. For some reason I didn’t ask him. I think I meant to do so, but didn’t want to interrupt the talk and later forgot to quiz him about it. Now I understand the difference. It is really child resting his finger on the lip, but as with all Egyptian symbolism you could look for deeper levels. It is possible that the Greeks may have been doing just that, or it could have been a mistake pure and simple. If it was a mistake it was one that was serendipitous, as, to use Jungian language, it allows the collective unconscious to take the archetype to a whole new level.